


Not Drunk

by fardareismai



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Drunkenness, F/M, Fluff, Sharing a Bed, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-16 11:51:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4624326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fardareismai/pseuds/fardareismai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor absolutely is not drunk, no matter how absurd he is acting.  He is a Time Lord, and Time Lords do not get drunk, Rose Tyler!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Drunk

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fleurdeneuf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurdeneuf/gifts).



> **Some days you're watching the Republican primary debates with a dear friend, and you're both drinking (because there are few other ways for you to make it through those debates without breaking something) and your friend informs you that they now have 250 followers on Tumblr and you say that that is an acheivement that deserves fic.**
> 
> **So, both of you are tipsy, and she gives you a prompt (about being tipsy), and you start writing it that night, but you don't finish it.**
> 
> **Fast forward two weeks and you find that fic sitting unfinished on your Google Drive and you realize that you kiiiiiind of forgot that it existed.**
> 
> **So you finish it and post it and hope that she still loves you (and her follower count hasn't jumped up to 500 yet because that kind of thing deserves way more than 1500 words of silliness half-written when drunk).**
> 
> **Happy 250 followers, Fleurdeneuf!**

He wasn't  _drunk_  per se. Time Lords did not get drunk. They absolutely didn't get tipsy… that was an  _entirely_  human behaviour, tipsiness. He was not the slightest bit tipsy. Not at all. In spite of all of Jack's attempts, the Doctor was in no way drunk. He absolutely did not get drunk off of only a handful of ounces (gallons? Possibly, it had taken a long time to get this way) of gin.

In spite of the surprisingly intoxicating properties of juniper berries, the Doctor was not drunk he was… happy.

Happy enough to consider dancing.

And dancing made him think of the even-more-intoxicating properties of Rose's perfume.

But the Doctor was not intoxicated.

Nor was he pacing in front of Rose Tyler's door three hours after she had excused herself from his and Jack's presence (and drinking contest) to go to bed.

Well… he had to concede this last point. There didn't seem to be any denying that he was, in fact, in front of Rose's door.

He wouldn't knock and wake her, however. Never. That would be foolish, and the Doctor, the last of the Time Lords, the Oncoming Storm, the Ender of the Last Great Time War would never be foolish. Even in the very unlikely even that he was drunk, which he was, most assuredly, not.

He was, however, knocking on her door. Why in all of time and space was he doing that?

But then she answered, and he had his answer- because she glowed. The warm bedroom light was behind her, casting a halo on her blonde hair, and his vision might have been just the slightest bit fuzzy, but there was more to it than that. Her cheeks were warm and pink with sleep, and her eyes were bright. Her skin was smooth and creamy, uncovered by makeup, and her rumpled clothes and hair gave her a gentle sexiness that, under different circumstances he would never admit to affecting him.

He might have to admit to a certain… lack of inhibition. He was not, however, drunk.

"Doctor?" Rose slurred. He was pleased to note that her voice, upon waking, was husky and low, and her eyes were heavy, lashes dark but not quite hiding those gold depths.

"What are you doing here? Did you have a nightmare?"

Rose's voice was getting clearer, and her eyes were becoming more lucid. It seemed that her increased clarity was just sinking the Doctor's incoherency deeper, however.

This time, however, whatever was affecting the Doctor's perceptions had nothing to do with Jack and his gin and everything to do with the odd, low-note scent of skin and sleep that seemed to be rising from the girl standing before him and blinking sleepily at him in confusion.

"Doctor?" she said, her eyebrows drawing down into a frown. "What's wrong, Doctor?"

He blinked stupidly at her. Not drunkenly, because he was not drunk, but he could acknowledge that he was feeling a bit stupid, looking at her.

Then again, when had he ever admitted to being stupid save when he was drunk?

Not that he got drunk.

No.

Rose was still staring at him in confusion.

"I," he declared, "am not drunk." It seemed very important that she know that right off the bat.

Her eyebrows rose. He was pleased to see that. She shouldn't frown, her face was so lovely when she smiled. Or even when she didn't, but she shouldn't frown.

She was lovely when she frowned as well, though. She was always lovely.

"You're lovely," he said.

Rose let out a sigh and rolled her eyes, her lips twisting into a rueful smile. Rueful was a fun word to say and think, but not nearly so fun to feel. The Doctor absolutely did not want Rose feeling rueful.

Sometimes, he thought perhaps he was more in touch with his other selves when he was drunk… this was a voice he didn't think he'd heard before, but Rose brought it out of him, oddly.

"Not drunk, eh?" Rose asked.

"Absolutely not, no matter how hard your Captain tried."

"My Captain? I think, of the two of us, there is only one that Jack has managed to get drunk and loose since joining the crew, and it isn't me."

"How many times do I have to tell you, Rose Tyler, that I am not drunk?"

"At least one more. You need to sit down. Better, actually, you need to drink a large glass of water, take an aspirin, and lie down. I'd tell you to sleep but you'd just say-"

"Superior Time Lord biology, Rose! Don't need sleep, me."

"That's the one," she said, shaking her head. "Go to bed, Doctor."

Now that sounded a brilliant idea.

"Now that sounds a brilliant idea," the Doctor said, and stumbled past her, collapsing on her messy pink duvet.

Rose sighed and, in spite of being on the other side of the room, the Doctor could swear that he could feel her breath on his skin.

"I know that you're an all-knowing Time Lord and I'm just a stupid ape, but that's actually my bed, not yours," Rose said, beginning to sound irritated.

"Nspud," the Doctor said muffled by her blankets and pillows.

"I beg your pardon?"

The Doctor pushed himself up. "You're not stupid, you're not an ape, and I'm perfectly aware that this is your bed, now come here. You're right, I should sleep, and I intend to sleep right here with you."

"Doctor-"

The Doctor stood and crossed the room on surprisingly steady legs and stood in front of her. His ice-blue eyes were surprisingly clear, for all he was behaving strangely, and Rose had a hard time disbelieving his statement that he was not drunk.

"I am not drunk," the Doctor said, as though confirming Rose's thoughts. "However, you're right that I should sleep and I intend to sleep right here in this bed with you, do you understand me?"

Rose stood silent for a long moment, stunned by this admission, and she saw uncertainty cross the Doctor's face.

"That is," he said, suddenly sounding less the conquering hero and more the uncertain little boy, "you don't want me to stay?"

Rose burst out laughing at that. The idea that she wouldn't want him was absurd but, when she looked up into his face again, she saw the uncertainty had grown to outright fear and rejection.

"Gods, Doctor, of course I want you," Rose said, then considered the fact that she was pretty sure that, in spite of his insistence and his clear eyes, he was certainly behaving as though he were drunk, she continued quickly, "to stay here if you want. It's not a problem."

The Doctor gave her a bright, daft grin and stepped away to pull off his shoes. Once they were off, and his jacket stripped and left in a heap on the floor, he crawled back into her bed, under her blankets, and looked up at her, still standing by the door, watching him.

"Come on then, Rose," the Doctor said, patting the bed beside him. "I know you haven't finished sleeping yet."

He was right, of course, Rose thought. He usually was. The shock of his being at her door was wearing off and she was exhausted, and the thought of sleeping in a chair or facing whatever dangers they would run the next day without sleep was a horrible thing even to consider.

Rose shrugged and climbed into the bed beside him, careful to lay just a bit separate from him, not touching anywhere. She was lucky that the bed was big and she was small. Once she was comfortable, she gently stroked the wall beside her bed in the way that indicated to the old Time Ship that the lights should go down.

In the dark, suddenly, there was a warm, solid shape at her back, a heavy arm pulling her against a broad chest with a pair of heartbeats thrumming against her back, and a slightly over-large nose buried in her hair.

"Goodnight, Rose Tyler," a voice said in a barely-slurred Northern accent.

"It's a pity you won't remember this in the morning," Rose whispered, settling back against him and allowing his deep breathing to soothe her to sleep.

In the morning, the Doctor remembered and reminded Rose of precisely how many times he had insisted that he was not drunk before nuzzling against her neck in a way that sent decidedly non-sleepy signals through Rose's sleep-fogged brain.


End file.
